A Heartbeat Away (sermon, August 9, 2009)

2 Samuel 23:1-7
1 Thessalonians 5:16

If you have ever driven east on Interstate 70, down from the Rocky Mountains and into the city of Denver, then you probably remember the signs. For the last 20 miles or so coming out of the mountains, there are huge signs along the road trying to get the attention of truckers.

“Truckers,” one sign says, “You are not down yet! Another 12 miles of steep grades and sharp curves to go!” Then a mile or so later there is another one: “Truckers: don’t be fooled! Four more miles of steep grades and sharp curves.” Another sign poses a question: “Truckers: are your brakes adjusted and cooled? Steep grades and sharp curves ahead.”

As I read through the end of the story of David in 2 Samuel, I began to wish that in the margins of my Bible there had been signs like that. Because every time I thought the story was almost over, it started up again. The verses we read today, the so-called “last words of David,” are not followed by an account of David’s death and burial but instead by another two chapters narrating more stories of the final years of David’s rule. In fact, when we finally come to the end of 2 Samuel, David is still alive! He doesn’t die until the middle of 1 Kings chapter 2.

Even though David actually dies in 1 Kings, I decided to reflect on these last words of David because they remind us of one of the most remarkable things about David: his life was saturated with God. In this psalm-like poem, David recalls that God chose and anointed him to rule Israel and that God made an unconditional covenant with David that his family would reign over Israel forever, a covenant that reached its fulfillment when Jesus, an ancestor of David and God incarnate, came to earth and established God’s unconditional covenant of grace with all humanity.

In order to understand just how fully David’s relationship with God defined his life, it helps to go outside the books of 1 and 2 Samuel and dive into the other words often attributed to David: the psalms. According to Jewish tradition, David was the author of the psalms. Some of the psalms attributed to David go so far as to suggest the episode in David’s life that prompted the writing of that particular psalm, and once you know the David stories, it is a whole new experience to read the psalms with them in mind.

For example, listen to these opening verses of Psalm 3, which is described as “a psalm of David when he fled from his son Absalom”: “O Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! Many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver him.’ But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head...I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me” (Psalm 3:1-3, 5)

Then there is Psalm 51, a heart-wrenching and intimate portrait of a man brought face to face with his sin. This is described as “a psalm of David when the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.” In it, the writer begs: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation...” (Psalm 51:8-12a).

Psalm 57 is one of several psalms connected to all those times David went into hiding to escape the murderous rage of King Saul. Listen to David’s cries to God: “I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills his purpose for me...My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music. Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn” (Psalm 57:2, 7-8).

Then, of course, there is the much-beloved Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...” (v. 1). Although this psalm is attributed to David, the editors of the psalms have not connected it with any particular event in his life. At the session meeting this week, the elders and I speculated on when David might have written this exquisite prayer, and we decided there was a case to be made that he wrote it when he was young and had no idea the depth of the dark valleys ahead of him. We also decided there was an equally strong argument that he wrote it at the end of his life, looking back on all the he had come through by the grace of God. Time and again, in good times and bad, David’s life was saturated with God’s presence, and David chose God.

David chose God. Those, I think, are the operative words about David, keeping in mind of course, that God chose David first, just as God chooses all of us. But for David, no matter the situation, from being anointed king of Israel to losing more than one child to brutal murder -- all of these things became opportunities for David to approach God, to relate to God, to choose God.

For David and for us, choosing God is an ongoing process in the life of faith. It’s not something that happens all at once, and, for most of us, it’s not something that happens automatically. It takes hard work and diligent practice. We heard stories over the last few weeks in which David seemed to almost willfully ignore God as he made selfish choices that harmed himself and others. Yet David always returned to God, showing us how, over time, an intimate awareness of God’s presence and God’s providence in our lives can become as much a part of our existence as the air we breathe. Over time, it can become easier for us, almost involuntary, to choose God.

In the introduction to the book How God Changes Your Brain, author and neuroscientist Andrew Newberg tells how his research “has consistently demonstrated that God is part of our consciousness and that the more you think about God, the more you will alter...your brain. That is why I say, with the utmost confidence, that God can change your brain.”(1)

Newberg and his coauthor, therapist Mark Waldman, point out that since children cannot process abstract ideas, they develop a very concrete picture of God in their minds based on the attributes they hear assigned to God: if they are told about a God who “sees” and “hears,” then they imagine God with a face that looks human, with eyes and ears. This is good for a child, but if we stop talking and thinking about God as we grow up, then our faith development stops there, and we are left with a God who looks like us, but who is wholly apart from us, a totally separate being.

Those whose faith matures with them into adulthood, however, experience changes in brain activity as they contemplate God, forming new circuits that enhance our feeling that God is real and God is with us. These circuits enable us to experience a very real sense of God’s presence with us. The next rung on the ladder of faith and brain development is found in the brains of people who engage in intense prayer and meditation. The brains of these people change in such a way that the boundaries establishing “you” and “God” as separate entities dissolve. They experience a sense of oneness with God by choosing to saturate their lives and their minds with God in prayer and meditation.

Here’s the catch. It makes a profound difference what kind of God we imagine when we think about God or pray to God. If we focus on a loving, compassionate God, then this stimulates areas in the brain that help us feel a sense of security as well as areas that allow us to feel compassion for ourselves and others. On the other hand, if we focus on a vengeful, angry, judgmental God, then that stimulates the part of the brain that makes us fearful and anxious.

Fortunately, our brains don’t let us off the hook by making us choose between a compassionate God and a judgmental God. If we take the Bible seriously, then we will encounter both a God of compassion and mercy and a God of judgment and vengeance, and we will develop areas in our brain corresponding to these different aspects of God. So most of us who have spent a lifetime hearing about and thinking about God have a multitude of what Newberg and Waldman call “God-circuits” in our brains, a variety of images of God. But at some point, we have to make a choice about which attributes of God we will focus on. And these choices matter. They matter because our brains actually change when we focus on beliefs about God that we want to emulate in our own lives. If we choose to focus on God’s compassion, love, and peace, then we increase our ability to show compassion, to love others, and to seek peace at the same time suppressing the parts of the brain that generate anxiety, depression, anger, and fear. If we take a lesson from David and choose to saturate our lives with God’s love for us, presence with us, and compassion toward us, then we become better able to manifest those attributes in our lives.(2)

Obviously, in the course of his lifetime, even David, who was saturated in an awareness of God’s presence and love and mercy, had a variety of “God-circuits” in his brain. In these so-called “last words” of David’s that we read today, we see that he recognizes aspects of God that are harsh and judgmental, and we certainly saw times in David’s life when he judged others harshly and sough revenge. From time to time, even the brain of the great King David short-circuited. But looking at the whole of David’s life, all the stories and prayers we have of David, we see that ultimately, David chose to focus on God’s goodness to him and to the people of Israel. “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,” David says in the 23rd Psalm “and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6)

****

There is an old Cherokee legend about a little boy who received a drum as a gift. It was beautiful and he loved it. Then, as he was playing with it one day not long after he had gotten it, his best friend came up to him. He admired the drum and then asked to have a turn with it. The little boy was torn. He loved his drum and he didn’t want to share it. He also loved his friend. After a few moments, he clutched the drum tightly and ran away.

Later, the boy went to see one of the elders for guidance. The elder sympathized with him, and told him that he often felt like he had two wolves living inside him. One wolf was greedy, angry, and selfish. The other was kind and generous and compassionate. And the two wolves inside him were constantly fighting with each other. The elder told the boy that he thought the boy had two wolves inside him too.

The boy nodded and then asked, “Which wolf will win the fight?”

The elder responded, “The one that you feed.”

Every one of us has those two wolves inside. And as we journey through life, we might find that reading the stories and prayers of David can be for us like visiting a wise elder of our tribe. David surely knows how it feels to struggle each day to turn to God when the rest of the world is telling us there is an easier way. And like us, David had plenty of days when the greedy, angry, selfish wolf won the fight. But I believe if there was one piece of advice David would give us, it would be to do what, over the course of a long and eventful life, he was able to do over and over again: Choose God, the God who saves you, the God always ready to forgive you, the God whose love makes each stage of the journey bearable. Choose God. Amen.

Endnotes:
1. Newberg, Andrew, and Mark Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain. Ballantine Books, 2009.
2. from the paper, “Too Many Gods in Our Brain,” by Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman, Center for Spirituality and the Mind, University of Pennsylvania, available for download here.

The Journey

Over the last few months, my not-quite two year-old son has been talking more and more. It is fascinating to finally hear him put words to what he is thinking and feeling. One of his much-used phrases is "dat way." We'll be driving in the car or taking a walk with him in the stroller and he'll see a street that we don't take and say "Dat way! Wanna go dat way!" Of course, he doesn't know what is down that street not taken, but apparently, something about it appeals to him. He also doesn't completely understand that the adult who is driving him or pushing his stroller usually has a good reason for going a different way.

In my son's longing to take his own path, I recognize my own tug of war with God. On this journey of faith, I have looked longingly at side streets and highways and said "That way! I want to go that way!" Amazingly enough, God has let me choose where I wanted to go, even when the choices were bad ones. God has stayed with me through all my choices and--sometimes just by being with me--has redeemed my mistakes or at least helped me to come to terms with them so that the journey can continue.

Sunday I will preach a final sermon in my series on the stories of David in 1 and 2 Samuel. One thing I have found so appealing about David is that he is both an exceptional character (set apart, chosen by God to rule Israel) and exquisitely (often painfully) human--he makes terrible mistakes both personally and politically. But through all of the twists and turns and dead ends of David's life, God sticks by him, and David sticks by God, too, seeking out God time and again to show his gratitude, to repent, to worship, to lament, to pray. David's story reminds us that, much as we might wish it at times, God is not going to lead us in the right direction against our will, but God will go with us, if only so that eventually we might learn to quit focusing on the path and instead turn our attention toward the One we seek to follow.

It Takes a God (sermon, August 2, 2009)

2 Samuel 18: 5-9, 15, 31-33
Luke 15:11-24

On a September day in 1999, Mary Anne Mayer came home to find a Marine recruiter sitting at her dining room table with her son, Stan. Mary Anne was astonished. The only thing she knew about Marines came from books and movies, and a Marine was just about the last thing she had ever dreamed her sensitive, artistic, thoughtful son would become. She was so surprised and overwhelmed, in fact, that she practically started crying right there in her kitchen. The recruiter apologized and left, but he came back again and, despite his mother’s objections, Stan signed up for the Marine reserves.

And it actually turned out okay, for a while. Stan managed to balance college and the Marines and Mary Anne breathed a sigh of relief that her worst fears and concerns hadn’t been realized...that is, until September 11, 2001. After that fateful day, it was two more years before Stan’s unit was finally sent to Iraq, but eventually he did go. This is what Mary Anne wrote about the day Stan left for Iraq:

“I cannot possibly describe what it feels like to send your child to war. It’s a bizarre explosion of fear and pride, helplessness and strength, anger and acceptance. Surrendering, I placed Stan in God’s hands, and asked our parish priest to bless him before he left for Iraq. As I placed the blue star in our window, I finally understood the hearts of all the mothers who had gone before me throughout history.”

Each day that Stan was in Iraq was agony for Mary Anne. He was, of course, constantly on his mother’s mind and in her prayers. Miraculously, he survived with minor injuries when his Humvee was hit by a suicide bomber in an SUV filled with explosives. Then, three months later, Mary Anne was driving around town, listening to the news on the radio, when she heard that fourteen Marines from her son’s unit had been killed that day. Somehow, she managed to drive herself home, where she sat by the phone, praying it would not ring, terrified of the sound of a car coming up the driveway to deliver the unbearable news. (1)

When I read Mary Anne’s story, this was the part that made my blood run cold. How can a parent survive those moments -- moments that must seem like decades -- when you don’t know whether your child is alive or dead? I’m sure some of you have endured such anguish, whether it was because your child was at war or on drugs or had missed her curfew, again. Such is the anguish, no doubt, that King David must have endured while he waited, encamped in a place called Mahanaim, to find out whether his son Absalom would survive the battle raging in the nearby forest. The awful twist in David’s story, however, is that the battle in which Absalom fought was a battle which, if he was honest with himself, David would have to admit he caused.

It all goes back to last week’s story when David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then arranged the murder of her husband, Uriah. The prophet Nathan delivered to David God’s promise to raise up trouble against David from within his own family, and that’s exactly what happened. David’s first-born son, Amnon, lusted after his half-sister, Tamar. He wasn’t just attracted to her, he was consumed by his desire for her. Finally, he got her alone and raped her. Then, of course, as so often happens when our sinful desires are satisfied, he was filled with loathing for himself and for Tamar, and he cast her aside.

Amnon may have been immune to Tamar’s grief and despair over having been physically violated, but her brother Absalom was not. He took his devastated sister into his home and allowed her to live with him. When King David heard what had happened between Amnon and Tamar, the Bible says that he became very angry, but he refused to punish his firstborn son. Absalom, on the other hand, was furious with his brother, and he spent the next two years plotting his revenge. Finally, he invited his brother Amnon to a great feast and, when Amnon had consumed plenty of wine, Absalom ordered his servants to kill his brother. Then, fearing the consequences of his action, Absalom fled from his father and his country and stayed away for three long years.

Seems like this ought to qualify as “trouble within David’s family,” don’t you think? And maybe, just maybe, the trouble might have ended there if David could have truly forgiven Absalom and welcomed him back home. Actually, at the end of 2 Samuel chapter 13 it looks like that might happen. The text says that after Absalom was gone for three years, David’s heart went out for him and he yearned to see his son for he was now consoled over the death of Amnon -- not over it, necessarily, but ready to have back the son who was still alive.

But, as Eugene Peterson puts it in his wonderful book about David, at this point in the story, David “made a major contribution to his own later suffering: he refused to see Absalom.” He may have forgiven him in his heart, but he didn’t forgive him in person. Absalom was allowed back into Jerusalem, but David refused to see him, to put his arms around him and kiss him and look him in the eye and forgive him.

*****

Last week I had the opportunity to take my four year-old daughter, Sarah, to her first musical. It was a performance of the first act of the Broadway musical “Into the Woods.” The first act is more or less appropriate for young children, since it retells some of the most beloved fairy tales: Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella. The second act is all about what really happened after all of those stories ended “happily ever after,” and let’s just say there’s nothing very “happily” about it. But this musical was only the first act and it was billed for young children, so I thought Sarah would be fine.

And she was fine. I wasn’t. It’s funny how you see stories differently at different stages in life. Watching these familiar tales unfold, I was astonished at how much suffering was in them: the poverty and despair of Cinderella, the danger and violence of Little Red Riding Hood’s encounter with the wolf in the woods, the fear Jack felt when a giant chased him out of the sky.

The awareness that this musical was really written more for adults than children hit home as the actors sang the final song. Listen to some of the lyrics:

Careful the things you say,
Children will listen.
Careful the things you do,
Children will see.
And learn.

Children may not obey,
But children will listen.
Children will look to you
For which way to turn,
To learn what to be.

Careful before you say,
"Listen to me."
Children will listen. (2)

Well after that, I was scared to say anything to Sarah. What a terrifying thing it is to be a parent and realize that children not only see all the awful things we all say and do from time to time: they imitate them!

Well, this is exactly what happens with David and Absalom. David takes what he wants with Bathsheba and schemes a cover-up plan that ends with a murder. And so, like father like son, Absalom takes justice into his own hands when David won’t punish Amnon for the rape of Tamar and has his brother killed. Then when David refuses to reach out to Absalom and offer genuine forgiveness, Absalom learns that forgiveness is optional, and so the trouble in David’s family just goes on and on.

Suffering the deep wound that only a parent is capable of inflicting on a child, desperate for the love and mercy only David could give him, Absalom’s heart finally hardened against his father, the same way, it seemed, David’s heart had hardened against his son. Two years after Absalom had returned to Jerusalem, David finally agreed to see him. Absalom bowed before his father and king and David kissed his son...but it was too late. Something in that encounter must have only hardened Absalom’s heart further, because after that, he started plotting against David in earnest, slowly, deliberately, the same way he plotted for years against Amnon.

And then, one day, after building up a following among the Israelites in Jerusalem, Absalom stages a coup, proclaims himself king, takes over Jerusalem and forces David and his loyal followers to flee the city. A battle ensues. After his men convince him that he is too valuable to participate in the battle himself, David commands them not to harm Absalom, and then he waits.

Like a mother whose son has gone to war, he waits. Even though it may have been his sin that caused all of this, I don’t doubt that David had all the emotions of Mary Anne Mayer and every other mother and father whose child is on the front lines of battle. When the awful news finally comes to him, David’s cry is one of pure anguish and despair, the cry of every parent who has lost a child: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! I should have died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

It’s awful to read, to hear, to speak, that kind of grief. Awful, most of all, because David knows it’s his sin that set all this in motion, although that was never what he intended. And let me be clear here, in case you think I’m saying that Absalom’s death was God’s punishment for David’s sin. It wasn’t a punishment and it wasn’t from God; it was, quite simply, the awful consequence of David’s actions, not just his adultery and murder, but his inability to reach out to Absalom after he murdered Amnon, his inability to extend grace and forgiveness when he had the chance.

Eugene Peterson asks us to imagine what might have happened in this story if, when Absalom returned to Jerusalem after three years of exile, David had received him the way the father in the story about the prodigal son received his son back home -- running out to meet him, looking like a fool, and throwing a huge banquet in his honor. How might things have turned out differently if David could have done that?

That kind of forgiveness takes a God. Over and over again, God forgives the very worst of what we can say or think or do. While our children watch and listen all too diligently to us, our everyday actions usually prove how mightily we fail to imitate God. Yet imitating God is exactly what Jesus calls us to do. “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.” The story of the prodigal son is not a story of a human father, it is the story of a heavenly father, but it is also a story of hope and possibility, of what the reconciliation of family members might look like if we spent less time rehashing old wounds and more time imitating God’s forgiveness.

What might that look like in your life, in your family? What possibilities might open up if you reached out to the brother with whom you never saw eye to eye; if you extended forgiveness to the daughter who took advantage of you one too many times; if you made an effort to see your parents as human beings, with their challenges and wounds, instead of seeing two people who willfully set out to make your childhood miserable? Maybe there is no trouble like that in your family, but I’d venture to say that each one of us has someone in our lives that we have been unable to forgive or at least to treat with compassion rather than hard-hearted judgment -- even if that someone is a stranger halfway around the world. Forgiveness like that is a long process, but it has to start sometime. This chapter in David’s story is a lesson in what the end might look like if we fail to look and listen to God and imitate what we learn.

“Oh, my son, Absalom, my son, my son! Would I had died instead of you!” Well, David couldn’t die for Absalom, but the Son of David, the Son of Man, the true Son of God, could -- and would -- die for all of us, that we might know, with full assurance, that the suffering of parents who lie awake at night worrying about their children, and the sorrow of children who never feel fully loved or accepted by their parents, the anguish of families everywhere as full of trouble as David’s messed-up family -- Jesus died that we might know that our suffering is not the end of the story. It’s not the end of the story even if, in our lifetime, we can’t ever manage to extend forgiveness to the son or daughter or sibling or parent or friend or enemy who has hurt us the most. For all of us, even David, the end of the story is God running toward us with wild abandon, welcoming us home with an extravagant banquet, receiving us into the heavenly family where grievances and differences are cast aside and forgiveness and love reigns. Amen.

Endnotes:
1. online excerpt from The Year Our Children Went to War, by Janie Reinart and Mary Anne Mayer, Gray & Company Publishers, http://www.wksu.org/news/story/23777.

2. Into the Woods, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim